I set-up a Synology DS412+ unit with 4 drives and need to create an offsite backup solution.

I had it working in a test offsite backup via Rsync to a PC but the customer wants to buy a second Synology unit instead and put this at his house at keep the solution end to end Synology.

He is looking at buying the lower spec model DS112J with a single drive and then we either create a backup set across a VPN or doing some port forwarding at the main site doing it via public with encryption.

Number one is this possible with the lower spec model and number two is this possible across the public web or would I need to create a VPN between the sites ?.

The main site has a Draytek router so it would be fairly easy to create a LAN to LAN VPN with another Draytek but public would be cheaper and easier as long as it's encrypted.

6 Replies

Rsync normally goes over SSH which is, for all intents and purposes, its own VPN. So no need to worry about a VPN, RSYNC and SSH will handle that for you (SSH is a VPN technology too, but this is used more like SSL which, in turn, is a VPN technology.) VPNs get to be a grey area like this, but rest assured this is as or more secure (by a bit) compared to a traditional VPN. And way easier to deal with.

I haven't used the lower end Synology but as a generalization, pretty much all Linux or UNIX based NAS devices have RSYNC available. It would be extremely surprising for the Synology to not offer that since their competition does and other models in their lineup do and as it is expected and free for them to provide.